The Answer: authorized use in churches.

It is difficult for someone in the twentieth century, especially someone in America to fathom the conditions of nearly four hundred years ago. We Christians not only have a Bible in our language, but more often than not, we have several. Added to that is our concordance and a raft of Bible commentaries and sundry other “Christian” books.

Yet the world of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was quite different. The common man in England had no Bible. The only copy available to him was chained to the altar of the church. As recently as 1536, William Tyndale had been burned at the stake for the high crime of printing Bibles in the language of the common man, English. When King James commissioned the fifty-four translators in 1603 he did not mandate the upcoming translation to be used in churches. In fact, that it was translated and notintended for the churches left it only one explainable destiny. That is, that it should be supplied to the common man.

It might be noted that the world has no greater power than the common man with the common Bible in his hand.

By the way, did I ever tell anyone that my ancestors on my mother’s side of the family came from a daughter of King James? She fled to the colonies in the earl 1600’s. She was disowned.She married a man with the last name of Hockenhull (don’t know if the spelling is correct). Interesting, huh?
I also had two people in my family who were hung for horse theft; a bunch of moonshiners who raced cars through the mountains; and someone who died under a bridge when a passing circus collapsed it (must be why I hate clowns).

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